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September 2011

This past week in my jazz arranging class, we started talking about chorale
writing. In jazz contexts, a "chorale" is a work of polyphonic music played
without the rhythm section. Removing the rhythm section sort of changes the
rules of the game; you can't rely on their persistent improvisation to make up
for a lack of rhythmic or harmonic interest in what's going on elsewhere. As
a result, chorale writing is driven by melody, not by groove.

My professor started class on Monday by listing off four basic characteristics
to strive towards in jazz chorale writing: independent motion, varied melodic
registers, reuse of material from the main theme in the counterlines, and a
flexible tempo.

With those basic principles in mind, I went ahead and put together a basic
jazz chorale arrangement of Mancini's The Days of Wine and Roses.
Since I've been wanting to write something for the U-Tubes (UNT's jazz
trombone ensemble), I opened up a blank score with 8 trombone staves and set
to work. Here's what I came up with:

The Days of Wine and Roses; trombone chorale by Adam Jensen

You can also download the score if you'd prefer to follow along on
paper. The arrangement has its problems, but I do think it demonstrates the
basic idea pretty well. In fact, I think I'm going to fix it up a bit and
then use it as an introduction to a larger chart, which I'll be writing
over the course of the semester. Keep watching for more about that piece!

Tonight as we were getting ready to start our first kindegarten choir rehearsal
at church, one of the kids took some building blocks and created his own
replica of the NYC World Trade Center towers. No doubt he'd been learning
about the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks at school, what with this being
the tenth anniversary and all. It was sort of odd to think of the perspective
from which he saw those events; for him, 9/11 is just something out of a
history book, albeit a very serious something. For those of us who watched
it all unfold on TV, it's something quite more than that.

You know, no matter how much complex modern harmony they teach me,
I do still love me some twelve-bar blues. Here's one I made up the
other day before work:

I decided to call it "Ant Bite Blues," in honor of the fact that moments
before I recorded it I was bitten on the foot by a fire ant out in my front
yard. It's not my best performance, but I think it's fair work considering how
little shedding I've been able to do lately. Besides, no matter how many
mistakes I may have made, listening to this recording is a lot more fun than
getting that ant bite.

As always, if you're interested in hearing more of my trombone playing, please
have a listen to my Musical Résumé.

My daughter Ellie is now ten months old, and due to the fact that her mother and
I both work full time, we recently enrolled her in a local day care program. It
wasn't the easiest decision to make, as we'd both love to be able to stay home
and take care of her ourselves; however, the experience has not been without its
own unique joys. To help myself remember, I thought I'd share a few.